


Some Weird Fanfic I Wrote For The Highest Art

by maurquez



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-10-09 13:33:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17407832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maurquez/pseuds/maurquez
Summary: Oh wow yes Revenge you have it figured out 100% totally definitely yes





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [transmarkcohen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/transmarkcohen/gifts).



He couldn't figure out what his name was.

 _Oh God oh God oh God_ and hands were all over him and what was that goddamn smell and everything was white and nothing was blue and he was running, running from _him_ but who was he and how did he find him and why couldn't people leave him alone and his brain was burning and  _oh God_ what the fuck was this headache and... shit... and what was his actual fucking name?  
  
He wanted to grapple his own shoulders and scream, beg for answers to pour out of him like a river. Who the fuck  _was_ he?

He couldn't be here. That was all he knew, all he'd ever know. He couldn't be there or he'd  _die_... and he barely knew death but he was  _scaredscaredscared,_ why couldn't this nightmare just fucking go away and just end... end... end...

End.

+++

The room was dizzying, a rowdy child spinning in circles and refusing to quiet down. It was noisy, everything was noisy, the whole world was so dang noisy. Roger Davis blinked once, twice, regaining whatever semblance of consciousness he had left. 

Mark. That was the monster's name. The cold-blooded demon that would fester inside his skin until he died. Roger was all too aware that you could battle hatred, but he'd never thought hatred could battle you, starve you and strip you down until it was the only thing left. But it could. And now? Roger was _nothing_.

And Roger had seen what could be done with that fire. And he  _never_ wanted anybody to go through that, least of all because of him. Not if he could help it.

"I apologise," a dark-skinned woman wearing a hospital gown said, obviously fumbling around the words like a teenager in the dark. "This must have been... quite frightening for you. B-but you'd given one of our nurses a black eye, and then we had to put you on some medication. Are you alright?"  
  
Roger nodded shakily. "Yeah, uh, sorry," he mumbled. "I was scared, I guess."

The doctor shook her head. "I know, and that's perfectly normal. So don't you go around being sorry, okay?"

A twinge of anger frizzled in his gut. What on Earth did she know about him? But then he realised she genuinely wanted to help him, and all he was doing was being a dick. "Right. T-thanks."

She grinned, slightly mischievously, as though there was a little spark in her eye just like... _oh, what the fuck was he doing?_ God, Roger needed to forget about that man, needed to scrub his brain clean of every last touch. He gritted his teeth. Focus.

"Why am I here?" he asked, his voice raspy and raw. "A-am I dead? Like, did I... you know?"

More silence. It was as if his very existence warranted empty spaces, where people tripped over themselves to figure out what to say. "No, you actually didn't. But, hey, don't worry. You remember who did?"

Roger bit his lip. "I think he's coming for me," he admitted. When voiced - when brought into reality - the thought sounded pathetic.

"No, Roger," the doctor explained. "He's dead. Mark just _died_ , don't you see?"

Roger inhaled - his breath was sharp, like the end of the sword. "No," he said. "That's Mark. He's never dead. He'll never be."

The woman scribbled something down. 

 


	2. Mark Son Dumb Lmao

Mornings tasted like cigarette-burnt breath, cheap beer and some random, washed-up girl around his arm.

Idiots, idiots, idiots. Fuck, why was everybody such an _idiot?_ It was safer, sure, but Revenge's life would be significantly more _fun_ if he was up against somebody with half a brain cell for once. He'd been admitted into what was allegedly "one of the best youth mental health facilities in the United States", but it was a mystery to him why none of them had figured that Mark, you know, had taught him how to run? How to fight? How to  _kill?_

When he'd escaped from that fucking hellhole, he'd done all three. He grinned - the satisfaction was mercilessly raw against the tip of his tongue. Mark would have been proud.

People would go on and on about how his father was a criminal. Or a lunatic. He'd once heard a girl simply describe him as "a weirdo" and leave it at that.

But they were wrong - oh, they were so wrong. It seemed to be these types of people that were blindly content with repeating history: stigmatising the great minds that would later flourish into revolutionaries. Spouting whatever bullshit legal labels they could dig up at Mark to avoid thinking critically for a mere second.

Revenge knew better. Mark wasn't a criminal or a lunatic or a crazyevilpsychodumbassmurderer. He was a goddamn genius, and considering all that he'd done in two weeks and the blink of an eye, he came pretty close to saying that he was one himself, too.

The _chick á la last night_ was starting to wake up, mumbling incoherently against her pillow and smearing an unbearably thick coat of make-up all over it. "The fuck you still here?" he asked, voice heavy.  
  
"Oh, shit, sorry," the girl whispered before grabbing her t-shirt and rushing out of the building. _Good._ He wasn't in the mood for another murder, not yet.

Revenge had spent the past fifteen days calculating, analysing, writing detailed charts from the ground up and burning them down when a logical fallacy was spotted. He'd retraced every single route, every possible solution to fill in the missing piece of what  _really_ happened on the night of the worst tragedy of his life. And - manic with euphoria and success and a million cups of coffee - he realised he'd done it. He'd actually done it. 

He'd found out the name of the rotten bitch that had taken out the Phantom of New York.

 _Evan._ Stupid fucking therapist _Evan_. He must have been feeling great about the whole ordeal. Unconquerable, even.

But conquerable he was. And now? Now he was going to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow yes Revenge you have it figured out 100% totally definitely yes


	3. Chapter 3

Liberty Cohen - or Davis, as she guessed she was now called - had a nightmare last night.

It wasn't as if she didn't expect it, and though it was the same thing every night it somehow managed to constantly knock her off her feet. Her mind was a record running at a million beats per minute, all bloody hands and cracking joints and ragged breath and wobbly smiles and  _did i do it?_ and icy blue eyes and screaming and screaming and screaming until she couldn't tell whether she was the killer or the victim and screaming and screaming and screaming and silence and waking up with your own hand over your mouth.

Now she was in the shower, breathing heavily and watching the freezing cold water tumbling across her legs and into the drain. The icy sting was bothering her more and more but she couldn't get out, couldn't move, she was buried alive underneath the grasp of her own mind. Talk about irony.   
  
If you asked Liberty, her cramped shower was the best place to soak the grime out of her brain, to think about knives and rocks and brothers and fathers and stains and every dang thing that bothered her. She'd linger in their stench and let them drown her, and whenever she stepped out, she always felt slightly like she'd been reborn. 

_Liberty liked Truth Or Dare. It was always the second choice game at the clinic, the one that was settled on after they collectively realised they didn't have the equipment for Spin The Bottle. In a way, she related to that - she wasn't cool and calculating like Revenge or bordering-on-insane like Mark, she only had a small spark of madness that powered her whenever she went. She didn't really have any particular talents that couldn't be glossed over in less than a minute._

_"Ooh, Libbs," a frizzy-haired girl she couldn't remember the name of - Cassie? Carly? - said. "Truth or Dare?"_

_The time where she'd been dared to eat ten spoons of salt and threw up on her pillow was still ingrained in her mind. "Truth," she said._  
  
_Frizzy Hair grinned triumphantly. This wasn't good. "Alright... who did you lose your virginity, too?"  
  
Liberty had chosen wrong. She was this close to vomiting again. Because how the hell_  _was she supposed to bring up that she fucked a corpse?_

Her trembling hands shut off the stream of water, albeit reluctantly. It was time to stop torturing herself. It was time to go to sleep. She stood frozen in her place like a mannequin for a few seconds before wrapping a towel around her waist. Liberty stole a quick glance at the mirror - all soggy hair and bloodshot eyes - and couldn't recognise her reflection. A twisted smile spread across her face. 

When the morbid satisfaction expired, her brain always seemed like it was glitching, stopping in motion and skipping beats because it didn't know what else to do. It always reminded her of a ten-year-old without a curfew. So she didn't know whether the scribbled message in semi-permanent marker was very real or a figment of her delusions.

_I'll talk to you soon - R_

She frowned in her sleep, tossing and turning over a paradox.  _Which R?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice how this bitch uses spins on metaphors that Roger/Revenge have used,,,, that's c o n n e c t i o n s babey


	4. Chapter 4

_Revenge gurgled and drowsily fiddled with a pillow, small chunks of spew lingering on the tip of his tongue. If he was a cartoon character, his skin would be fluorescent green and his eyes would be spinning around in infinite circles. He made a retching sound and fell over on his emancipated stomach._

_"A-are you sure this is a good idea?" Roger asked, biting his lips. He'd been doing that a lot since the kiddos were born, and the price was the blue and purple sores that decorated his lips like fucked-up Christmas lights._

_Mark raised an eyebrow. "Don't you trust me?"_  
  
_Roger didn't answer. He was afraid to hear the words tumbling out of his lips, even out of his head._

_Mark laughed - Roger didn't. "I'm... not sure that's funny," Roger stuttered._

_"No, it's not," Mark allowed, and then paused to shove the wine bottle down Revenge's throat. He choked. "It's more ironic, isn't it?"_

That was thirteen years ago, when he was barely four and quite a bit of a moron. The taste of alcohol was sour against his throat, a poison he hadn't yet learnt to relish. Now he craved it as though it was antidote. He was drinking it now, sloppily dragging the bottle to his mouth and letting half the liquid escape against his chin. He groaned in delight.   
  
Drinking and driving was something he'd learnt to do ages ago - even though, legally speaking, he wasn't supposed to do either. But fuck it. The law was nothing more than a piece of paper with a bunch of fools rushing to defend it. Besides, didn't he have more important worries?  
  
Liberty. He was going to see Liberty. And avenge his father once and for all. He'd finally found a bullet that could slice through two at once. And he was willing to risk anything to fire it, even if it meant going back to the wretched place he loathed the most. 

Revenge truly loved his car. It was this cheap, beat-up, mid-eighties thing with dents and bruises all over them. When he'd go for drives around town, more for shits and giggles than anything else, he'd usually have some sort of disposable girl riding shotgun. He loved seeing their hair fall back like a mantle, his eyes grazing upon the spot near their heart and thinking about where exactly he'd be able to strike them.

But he'd be lying if he said he didn't appreciate when it was just him and the vehicle and staring at the horizon. He smiled. He was almost there. 


	5. Chapter 5

In a life-or-death situation, the sum of your untapped strength kicks in all at once.

Your body registers that you are, in fact, heartbeats away from death - and while the thought of it possessing empathy is doubtful, hey, your body's life is yours, and it will transform itself into a ruthless beast to keep that vessel of yours up-and-running. So in an urgent flash of desperation that doesn't quite show up when you're impressing a cute guy at the gym or recklessly clicking your mouse in a fast-paced trivia game, it releases all that cortisol and adrenaline into your bloodstream, and  _bam_. There you go.

Your power kicks in as though the whole dang world depends on it. And when you think about it.... really, it sort of does

Liberty sighed to herself, absentmindedly dipping her spoon into the expired-milk-and-cheerios combination she'd been offered, more fooling around with the food around than actually eating it. Recovery could be life-or-death, right? _And it better be, because wow, she could really use some of those superhuman instincts right now._

Tentatively, she returned to the never-ending cesspool that her thoughts seemed to thrive in. When all she'd been was some measly little meteor orbiting around the shining star of all things murder, she'd obsessed over the Zodiac Killer in the same way a normal girl would worship her taped-up One Direction poster. Mark always joked about a potential crush in the picture, but no, she knew that wasn't quite it. The Zodiac had practiced the highest art form without sound, unflinching, unwavering, unnoticed until there weren't a lot of consequences to being found than half a century of awe-inspiring fame.

Going straight past the person who could end you and being written off as a mere passerby was the closest thing to a God she could imagine.  _What a dumbass cop,_ she'd think to herself. 

But irony strikes again, apparently. She'd spent minutes squinting at a shaggy-haired boy with bleached hair, wondering  _who the fuck he was_ and how she hadn't noticed him before. It couldn't be Vincent - despite the fact that he'd coloured his hair enough that he vaguely resembled a gay pride flag - because the boy in question would be shamelessly flirting with just about everybody but especially her. This new fellow, however, was staring down at his bowl as though the slightest sound would strangle him to an early death.

But then he'd directed his gaze upwards and their eyes met - his pair was blue and utterly magnetic. The rancid milk nearly spilled out of her nostrils, nearly drowned her brain in all of its filthy glory.

"Oh, sweet fuck," she said, a combination of  _holy fuck_ and  _sweet Jesus_ that didn't exactly come out like she intended. "What are you doing here, Revenge? You... you left, right?."

He grinned at her mischievously, as though lifetimes hadn't passed since they last met. "Aww, I just couldn't live without ya, sis," he said, tilting his head. The Southern accent was so ridiculously off that Liberty had to give an awkward smile of her own.

It was a joke. Of course it was a joke.  _Duh._ That didn't stop happiness from soaring like an eagle in her heart. "Fuck off," she replied effortlessly. She loved the two of them like this, almost mechanically in sync, wits matching each other and each other only.

And naturally, Revenge was thinking the same fucking thing. "God, I missed you," they said at the same time, and then they cracked up.


	6. Chapter 6

_"No freakin' way," Liberty insisted, mischievously sticking her tongue out. "Bones are better 'cause they're_ crunchy _."_

_He wasn't sleeping. Roger Davis hadn't been able to sleep for eleven years, but every night bloodshot eyes and screaming headaches made him feel as though the world was ending all over again. And when the chronic inability to close your eyes was combined with a ravenous anxiety about what on Earth was happening to your kids, well, what better thing to do than to stand outside their bedroom door?_

_It was more than a little bit creepy, Roger knew. The twins were only twelve, but given the content those two were exposed to on the daily, either one of them could be getting laid. God, he didn't even want to think about what sort of fucked-up understanding they had of sex._

_Then again, what human contact did they have that wasn't Mark or behind the veil of their laptop screens? And it wasn't as though Roger - who had no sexual desires of the incestuous variety - wasn't going to run for his life at the first sign of any of that shit happening._

_He could do nothing but hope that doing whatever he could do make sure his children were safe - well, safe-ish - wasn't predatory as fuck._

_Revenge shook his head, and the preteen-style eyeroll that ensued was so excruciatingly_ normal  _that it twisted a knife into his guts, a lingering promise of what could have been. What should have been. If Roger wasn't so freaking stupid. "Sure, bones are crunchy, but they don't leave a stain, do they? I like the stains - you know, they leave somethin' after the guys dead."_  
  
_"You could keep the bones?" Liberty suggested awkwardly, and they laughed in unison. It was a pure laugh, an innocent laugh, that should have been about anything else. But it wasn't. It was about goddamn murder._

_And Roger would have to live with that for the rest of his life._

Evan raised his eyebrows. When Mark used to do that, it was always mocking, it was always a joke he wasn't quite in on. Evan just looked curious. "From... from what you've written, I take it as though you blame yourself for what happened to Liberty and... uh... Revenge?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Roger asked, but it wasn't a question. At least not one he could answer. "They could have had a normal life. A normal fucking life! B-but they didn't... because I was in love with a freaking _monster_."

The paper was discarded to the side of Evan's desk. Roger wondered if he saved them. "Hey, hey. You can't blame your heart for who he falls in love with, okay?" Roger liked the use of the word  _he,_ as though his heart was a real person breathing love and life into his body. "I think you forget that you were a victim of abuse, too. Roger, abuse against a partner is as serious as abuse of any other kind. Whatever he made your children feel, he made you feel, too. It wasn't your fault. You suffer, too."

 "I know. But the kids, they didn't have a chance to leave. I fucking did, but I didn't take it." He bit his lip - what was it about one-on-one therapy that turned him into a nervous, fidgeting mess?  
  
"Abusers always make it as hard as possible for you to leave," Evan reminded him. "And you were against t-the Phantom of New York. Your scrawny ass wouldn't have been able to take him on."  
  
It was weird, the way Evan seamlessly flew from therapy-speak to the slang of an average twenty-something. It suited him, in a way. He was the perfect mix of a mental health specialist and a confidant. As though somebody had wriggled their hand into Roger's heart, found out exactly what he needed, and delivered it in the form of a man who was a little too good for this entire planet. And eternally too good for Roger, that was for sure. 

He couldn't be more grateful to have somebody like him in his life. 

"Yeah, you're right," Roger breathed - his muscles relaxed with every word. "I maybe... need to stop being so hard on myself?"  
  
Evan punched him gently in the shoulder. "That's the spirit, isn't it? One day, I want you to meet the guy in the mirror. And trust me when I say you'll like him."


	7. Chapter 7

Mark thought that death was the worst thing that could happen to a person.

It was the so-called highest fucking art, wasn't it? It was the cruelest fate to suffer and the mightiest fate to cause. Liberty used to get it, at least sort of: death was a great and fearsome unknown, one that could be poked and prodded until it was every bit as chilling as your mind could stretch it out to be. And once you were in, the only thing to do was pray to unconquerable deities from the skies in hopes of some get-out-of-jail-free card for what would eventually become humanity's inevitable end. More than anything, it was really sort of sad.

Liberty paused and wondered - _after everything, is it really better to know?_

But death didn't scare her anymore, no, not when life was what had beaten her black-and-purple-and-electric-blue. To her, death felt like completion, like the full stop that finished a sentence, like a warm bundle of blankets at the end of a rainy day. Maybe years of dead bodies grasping at her feet would catch up to her someday, but at the moment? Death felt like a break, and Liberty really needed one of those. 

"You know you're an idiot, right?" she told Revenge for what must have been the third time today. "But once you're done being silent and creepy, I'm gonna need some serious answers. You _hate_ this place, R, more than any of us - why come back?"

He shrugged, his expression not budging for a millisecond. Liberty knew what he was doing, of course; she'd done it a thousand times herself. She used to practice in the mirror when she was younger, standing meticulously still until not a smidge of emotion was betrayed. "I dunno. Doesn't life on the run get boring?"

She groaned. "Oh, come on," she said. "One, you never get bored and two, you're chronically unable to lie to me. So spit it out. _Why the fuck did you come here?_ "   
  
Revenge used to be the infinitely more passionate twin, the flaming bolt of lightning, always up-and-running rain or shine. She always suspected that something had washed him out over the years, because what else could have left him with all his hues bleached out, chasing booze and girls and brand-new stolen charms in pursuit of the fires that once were his home?

He squinted and furrowed his brows. The mask of neutrality faded away for something painstakingly clear: hurt. "Did you really think I wouldn't come back to see you?"

 _Yes. Definitely yes. You love me, but you could shove a knife down my_ _throat and not even blink._ "I sure don't think that's why you're here," she said instead. If skirting around the truth was a sport, she'd be an Olympic athlete.

Revenge's hands trembled as though they had a colony of bees swarming inside them. "It's the truth," he whispered, nearly suffocating on the words.

You fixed your eyes on him and willed yourself not to blink. He stared back. Then he sighed.

"Okay, come here," he said. "I'll tell you everything."


	8. Chapter 8

"What the actual _fuck_ , R?"

Shedidn'tgetitshedidn'tgetitshedidn'tgetit. God, why the fuck did he have to tell her? She was the closest thing to "like-minded" that he could possibly have and she didn't fucking get it. But it was too late, it was far too late to back out now. So he had to tell her.  _Everything._ And it wouldn't be pretty.

"W-why else would he get so close to Dad - uh, Roger, I mean?" he asked, his voice shook up like a soda can. "Do you think people do nice things for kicks, Libbs? He was  _getting to know the enemy,_ for fuck's sake! A-and now... now Mark is  _dead_ and Roger's falling into a goddamn trap!"

Liberty looked concerned, at least. That  _had_ to be good. But for Roger... or for him? "I'm... are you sure?" she asked after a pause so heavy Revenge imagined it would tear, guts overflowing on the two of them. "Are you  _really_ sure?"

"I'm positive," Revenge said lowly. "It makes sense. It all makes sense. I think I'm seeing into Mark's head, Libbs. You gotta trust me, okay?"  
  
His sister flinched, and he knew thoughts were hitting her like a freaking trainwreck. "Okay, fine," she said, but whatever smile she could salvage was nothing but an echo of the real thing. "Count me in."

He nodded - perfect. "Okay, okay, do you know Evan? What do you know about him?" 

"Slow down, okay?" Liberty whispered. "I don't know much! I mean, Roger likes him, and... I guess I like him, too. He doesn't use that therapy voice, you know? He's quite a bit of a DILF, actually," she added in an obvious attempt to brighten up the atmosphere.

 _Wait a fucking minute._ It felt as though a million wires had been plugged in underneath his skin. He was pure electricity, and Liberty was a goddamn genius. "Hold the fuck up, does Dad wanna fuck Evan?"

Liberty winced. "Ew, oh, God, no," she stammered, her cheeks flushing an unflattering shade of magenta. "Probably not. Evan's way out of his league, uh, objectively speaking at least."

Anger and adrenaline surged through his body, indeterminably intertwined, and, God, she was a typical  _shallow fucking bitch,_ nothing extraordinary inside her... but he needed to focus. "Fuck off, Libbs," he muttered instead. "And, yeah, there's the attractiveness differential, but it was the same thing with Mark, wasn't it?"  
  
Liberty's lip twitched but she didn't say a word. Good. Words were often wasted by those who had nothing to say. 

"It's possible, isn't it?" Revenge asked, cocking a brow. "Though it means I'll have to wake up in the morning wondering why my father's the type of idiot who was brainwashed by  _love_ of all things."  
  
He guessed he loved Liberty, but it wasn't close to being the same thing. Loving her was simple, easy, because they knew each other's odd bits and corners as if their brains wee intertwined. Being around her was taking off a sweat-riddled mask after a long, humid day. And, yeah, he'd dispose of her when it came down to it - at least, that's what he told himself.

"Which father?" Liberty asked, and he thought that time might come sooner than he thought.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

"A-and when he broke up with me," Asya whimpered, her cheeks stained with tracks of mascara. As if they were the map of her pain. "I couldn't get over him. Screw it, it's been  _five years_ and I can't even bring myself to sleep with anybody... you know, just in case I wake up to a black eye in the morning."

Liberty was thinking about whether she could smell pizza cooking in the cafeteria. She was convinced that pizza was the one food that was inherently unfuckupable, even when the cheese was stale and the bread was slightly reminiscent of mould.

"He's a dick, okay? I'm so sorry," she murmured, stroking the other girl's hair.  _The tangles in her hair could probably rival a bird's nest,_ she thought. "I know this doesn't give you much help, at least not as much as you deserve... but shit  _does_ get better. Trust me on that one."

God must have been in an ironic, fuck-the-humans-and-especially-you-Liberty-Cohen sort of mood when he'd chosen to make the scents of pizza (which she loved) and lasagne (which she hated) nearly indistinguishable. But pizza  _was_ served more often than lasagne, and it wasn't as though she didn't know how to choke down food that tasted disgusting. 

"I have nightmares,  _way_ too many nightmares for something that happened five freaking years ago. I-it's insane! And h-he gets to walk off like _nothing ever happened_!" Asya was full-on wailing at this point, soggy mascara tainting every inch of her golden-brown skin. 

Liberty was probably a crappy person. It wasn't as though she didn't  _try_ to be helpful: saying all the right things (though she had to memorise them) and listening to every detail even if the conversation made her want to fall asleep and never wake up again. But she could barely bring herself to feel even a smidge of empathy towards her friends, regardless of how fucked up the circumstances were. They only made her feel empty and ever-so-slightly intrigued. Rape, torture, murder, whatever... she couldn't bring herself to give a shit.

"I'm sorry, baby," she said, fearing her voice was as flat and emotionless as her thoughts were. "He'll get what's coming to him, believe me. They all do."

Asya sniffled into Liberty's sweater, leaving a thick black stain around the size of a baseball. She'd probably have to buy a new one - getting spots out of her clothes had never been a talent of hers. "You... you really think so?"

Her dark brown eyes were wide and hopeful, and they made Liberty think of a scolded puppy. She loathed puppies - or maybe she just felt sorry for them. They were so  _helpless_ , so  _vulnerable_ , so  _dependent._ They were everything Liberty was petrified at the thought of being. "One hundred percent. I've _seen_ it happen, remember?"

Asya let out a gasp, as if she'd only recently become aware of Mark's (former) existence. "Oh, right," she whispered. "And y-you think that's gonna happen with James?"

Liberty shook her head. "No," she said. "I think it already has."

And with that, she walked away.

+++

It was pizza. Liberty grinned and attempted to shove an enormous serving inside her mouth, which ended up with tomato sauce splashing all over her face. " _Loows wike bwodebwoja,_ " she told her brother.

Revenge laughed, raising his eyebrows. "If a programmer can't decipher what you're sayin', you're in serious trouble."  
  
Liberty groaned and swallowed. " _I said,_ it looks like a bloody blowjob."

"Suddenly, I wish you'd go back to blabbering on with food in your mouth," Revenge deadpanned, and Liberty snorted. "And how do you even know what that looks like?"  
  
Liberty shrugged. "Oh, yeah, the Red Room," she said. 

She glanced at Revenge's quickly shrinking portions and realised he wasn't scraping the mushrooms off like he used to. It certainly had been a while, but she found herself wondering -- who  _was_ this boy, and since when had he gotten over his perpetual fear of portobello? But she figured he would tease her for asking, so she didn't bring it up.

Then Evan walked past them and sat down on the couch, occupied with talking to a chubby girl in a wheelchair. "That's perfectly fine," he kept saying, over and over and over as if he was made of code and starting to glitch. "It's totally normal."  
  
Liberty could feel the manic glint in her eyes returning - suddenly, she had an idea. She gulped down the remaining slices in mere seconds and rose up, her butt cramping from being crouched down on the plastic.

"So, like, hey," she muttered, tapping on Evan's shoulder. Her complete social inability was suffocating her, but she was trying to wriggle out of its grip. "Could I please talk to you? Uh, I'm Roger's kid." 

Hearing the name brought a glimpse of sunlight to the therapist's smile. Fuck, Revenge  _was_ right. Which probably meant Mark was really coming back. She just wasn't sure whether she wanted to go through with... well, whatever they were doing... as much as her brother was.

"No problem," he assured her. "Do you want some privacy?"

 _Ooh, kinky,_ she thought, but she'd rather swallow a cup of her own blood than voice it aloud. Instead she nodded an affirmative and glanced down at her beat-up sneakers. "Thanks," she whispered as soon as they'd gotten away from earshot. "How's... how's Dad?"

Evan's eyebrows furrowed. "I don't think I'm allowed to disclose that, legally speaking. But he's definitely not going downhill, if that's what you're worried about."

Was that good or bad? Liberty made a mental note to ask Revenge. "I'm so proud of him, me and R both," she said, forcing herself to sound eager. "He's said so many good things about you. According to him, you're pretty much perfect."

He gave her a smile and  _whew,_ he was really freakin' hot. "Like,  _really_ perfect," she went on. "And my other therapist... h-he makes me uncomfortable. You know, like  _that._ " Liberty was about to destroy a nothing-but-helpful man's life, and she wasn't feeling shit. This was probably one of those moments where the magical sense of empathy was supposed to weasel its way into her brain.

"I'm sorry, that's awful," Evan said. "Is there anything I can-"

She was quick to interrupt him. "Would you maybe, like, be my therapist instead? I mean, just for a while. To try it out."

His forehead wrinkled -- which meant he was thinking about it. Liberty took a breath so deep she felt as though it was rupturing her lungs, not thinking anything but that she was in the midst of a moment that would make or break this entire fucking plan.  _Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes._

After a while, he grinned at her and nodded. "Sure," he said. "It would be my pleasure."


	12. heehee

_"It was a good idea at the time," Liberty sobbed to herself in the second stall of the middle school bathroom._

_Blood was staining the porcelain_ _seat, staining the endless wads of soggy tissue, staining the insides of her thighs. It was staining_ her _, and there was so fucking much of it that a quick glance could snatch_ _her breath away. She wasn't an idiot - she knew there would be blood. But there was so much, too much, and when she made even a slight motion her insides flickered with flames and gasoline. Liberty inhaled: sharp, quick, breathy, filled to the brim with some sheer otherworldly pain._

_Sanchez Guillermo. His name was Sanchez Guillermo._

_He was a beautiful porcelain figurine, small and skinny, and the deoxygenation had contorted him blue-and-purple-but-really-I-think-mostly-blue. His face shrivelled over time: like a rose squashed up in a sweaty palm, like a crumpled wad of paper. Honestly, if his hair was a bit darker and his skin was a bit lighter, he'd look quite a lot like Robert Pattison._

_She'd barely realised she was caught up in his honey-coloured gaze until hand leapt onto her shoulder. She flinched. "Oh, Liberty," Mark said. "Don't you think I know that look?"_

The scratchy surface of a worn-out hospital blanket brought a half-sleeping Liberty Cohen back to reality. It was alright... or as close to alright as it was going to get. Her life was different now, it consisted of disapproving nurses and bland food straight out of their cans instead of glazed-out eyes of dead men burning shadows into her skull. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Liberty's lungs scrambled for air. Mark was gone. Mark was dead.

Revenge... Revenge was just being a goddamn idiot.

More breathing. Flames flickered into her throat, tasting red and raw and somehow unintelligible. A perpetual fan of making things worse, she swung the drawer of her night stand open and reached for a bottle of whiskey (she'd expertly snuck it past a particularly mean-looking guard -  _thanks, dad_ ). Liberty never had a black-and-white relationship with alcohol and its smörgosbord of dark and delicious side effects: how could she, really, when she recognised that bitter sting from infancy? When she craved it all the same?  
  
She heard footsteps in the distance and flew out of the bed, sliding the whiskey underneath her mattress like a pro. She needed to talk to her brother... that or go straight to the fucking police. It was telling that she didn't know which was worse.


	14. heh sex

**NOTE: OH BOY I DID NOT EDIT THIS HAVE FUN READING THIS STEAMING PILE OF SHIT**

"You're... you're really something else, R, you know that?"

 _Can you get the fuck out of my room?_ was neither appropriate nor remotely socially acceptable. But, oh boy, was it accurate in this sort of situation, which had replayed more times during his life than he'd ever thought possible. If there was one thing Revenge had learnt, it was that hook-ups tend to have less self-awareness than a fashion blogger and a vegan combined. He wanted to scream at the girl until his throat went raw.

Instead he stood up, smoothing out the stick-thin blanket in pursuit of something to do. "Uhm, okay."

The mysterious one-night stand - Madelina Guillermo, he vaguely recalled her name being - glanced up and released a sloppy grin, her face about to melt in on itself. "I could listen to you talk all day."  
  
_What the actual fuck?_ The fact that he hadn't yet encountered a perverted stalker was up to nothing but sheer chance. Was she drunk... or was she just fucking stupid? Perhaps she was merely an amusing combination of both.

It felt as though an infinity stretched out before Madelina got out of the bed. "Listen, I gotta go... but I really need to tell you something."

Revenge wanted to sob. Or maybe grab a rope and kill himself. "Whatever, fine... what is it now?"

Madelina looked down awkwardly. Hell, everything she  _did_ was fucking awkward - that nervous way she talked, the way she'd bob her head before stumbling over an answer. "I'm - well, don't hate me, but you're kind of the first guy I've ever done anything with."

He couldn't do shit but stare at the enormous fucking bump that was protruding from her stomach. Truth be told, he'd only known her as the "preggo chick" before their sexual encounter. She could chatter on about the six-month-old cell collection growing inside her body for days in group therapy. How... how on _Earth_ could this girl possibly be a virgin?

The confusing mental mathematics whirring through his head were interrupted by Madelina's wild, roaring laugh. "Your face, baby, your face! I totally got you."  
  
Revenge couldn't help cracking a smile of his own - smaller, softer, but it was there. "Hah. Guess you did."

 


End file.
